


Tyger, Tyger

by Arsenic



Category: Temeraire - Novik
Genre: Character of Color, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-17
Updated: 2009-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:28:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sipho is used to being the hunted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tyger, Tyger

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mme Bahorel](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Mme+Bahorel).



> Thank you to Kaiz for the beta.

Sipho had once seen a lion attack a herd of wildebeest. The first thing it had done was to separate one wildebeeste from its herd, taking away its family, its friends, anything that could come to its aid, and only then had the lion been successful in its hunt, despite the superior size and perhaps even power of the wildebeeste.

England was a mystery that chilled Sipho, much like the mist that he woke to each morning. At first it had been neat, different, Temeraire's warmth stealing any ability the cold had to reach Sipho and take him over. Now, though, Temeraire was being kept somewhere--nobody would say where, not even the adults when they thought the children weren't listening. Demane was with Arkady. Demane took his position very seriously. Sipho did as well, he _did_, he just wished it would stop taking away everything familiar, everything he _trusted_.

There weren't any lions here, he had figured that much out. The dragons were the biggest predators around and they were uninterested in Sipho. It should have made him feel better. It didn't.

*

The language, at least, made sense to Sipho. It took his tongue more work to make the sounds, but he could do it if he concentrated a bit. The knowledge helped a little. Other people said a lot of things he knew he wasn't meant to hear, thinking he couldn't understand. He told Demane when he got a chance, and between the two of them, they could generally puzzle out bits and pieces of what was going on. There were big enough parts of all the stories missing for Sipho to feel lost in their conclusions, but it was better than not having started at all. Even something that didn't make much sense was better than nothing.

More than Temeraire's warmth, Sipho missed the way Temeraire could make sense of things. Temeraire would have found information they were missing, just by looking at the problem through his dragon eyes. Sipho wanted dragon eyes, but he probably couldn't have been Demane's brother if he'd been born a dragon, so he was accepting of his own eyes, mostly.

The lack--lack of information, lack of Temeraire--it felt like the summer when he and Demane had searched high and low, day in and day out, for food, but all the beasts were dying, heat and drought killing them and the plants, and there hadn't been anything. Sipho was a baby then, he couldn't remember how they had made it through, but he could remember the constant ache of emptiness, of want, of need.

Berkley made sure Sipho ate three times a day. Berkley's demeanor was warm, like his hands when he laid them on Sipho's shoulders, now and then. Sipho fed off the contact, the food, and survived everything else.

*

Sipho knew, in the way Laurence held himself, the small snippets of conversation, and mostly the way Temeraire wouldn't let Laurence out of his sight, he knew that everything was still all wrong, but he didn't know how to care. He had Temeraire back, Laurence, and most importantly, Demane. The trouble, whatever it was, could wait. Sipho was used to danger, to the way it could lurk nearby, could surprise a person. Trouble was something that had to be dealt with when it chose to show itself.

Besides, Temeraire was big, bigger than most problems Sipho had encountered. It was possible that Temeraire could blow it away with the wind, the Divine Wind, they called it, but Sipho hadn't figured out exactly what that meant. He just knew that it was strong, stronger than almost anything. Temeraire and Laurence weren't like him and Demane, just struggling to stay out of trouble's way. They could fight back.

At night, Temeraire would let Sipho lie under his wing. The ground was cold, much colder than it ever had been at home. But Temeraire's wing always kept him warm enough, safe enough from anything that might try to harm him in his sleep. He always rested well enough that in the morning, he could face whatever might come.

*

It was Temeraire who first informed Sipho that they were to leave England. Sipho dug his fingernails--torn and dirty from scrabbling around throughout the battle--into one of Temeraire's wings. Temeraire seemed not to notice. Sipho said, "Then I go with you."

Temeraire blinked at him, a surprised blink. "Of course you shall," he said. "You're my crew."

"That did not matter the last time," Sipho pointed out.

"Well, that was different, was it not? Laurence and I got into horrible trouble for that, even if it was the right thing to do and--"

"How does that make it different?"

"It isn't right that I should get my own crew into trouble for my own ideals. Or so Laurence seems to believe, and I have found that he is usually wise in these things, even if he is foolish in his choice of superiors." Temeraire made the last word sound like the words Berkley used when upset.

"But I-- We would have gone. We should have." Sipho couldn't explain what he meant, not in English, not yet. But when there was trouble to be gotten into, Demane and he had always done so together. If that was not the purpose of one's crew, what was?

Temeraire's ruff flared for a moment before settling. Sipho wondered how he had upset the dragon, but the answer was not evident in Temeraire's, "Well, you will be there this time."

"Yes," Sipho said.

"It is far," Temeraire told him softly.

Sipho couldn't hide his smile. He was so far from home as to never have known places this far existed before he came. He said, "Not so far. You and Demane will be there."

"And Laurence," Temeraire told him. Sipho took it to mean that Temeraire understood perfectly.

*

On the second night of their journey, Sipho woke to the creak of shipboards beneath him, the taste of salt on his tongue. Temeraire was sleeping nearby, the depth of his breathing not quite a snore, but not really describable as anything else, either. Demane's fingers were still curled around Sipho's right bicep, where they'd been when they'd both fallen asleep. Sipho didn't struggle to break free.

Letting his head roll to the side, he could see Laurence, still up, at the rail of the ship. For a moment, Sipho wandered what he was watching for. Did he fear an attack, or a sea monster, or simply the future? Perhaps he feared the newness of it all, once again. It was strange, knowing that they were all refugees this time, all heading away from something, rather than toward it.

Sipho whispered to Laurence, knowing the man couldn't hear, "It's not so scary."

He curled into Demane's hold, further inside the breadth of Temeraire's wing, and let the familiarity of the ocean lull him back into dreams.


End file.
